Terry,

The point of my last post is that you questioned the existence of two documents “in view of the evidence.” I gave you evidence to demonstrate that the documents exist. Now you’ve moved on to a different topic.  

In an earlier post, you wrote, “… it is perhaps useful to remember the activity  and term 'graphic design'  is recent and evolving. It is apparently less than 60 years since its first use as a term in any way,  and less than 30 years since start of design education programs.”

It is necessary to distinguish between the ACTIVITIES that comprise graphic design, the ACTIVITIES that comprised earlier forms of what we now call graphic design, and the TERM for those activities. The ACTIVITY dates back several millennia in different forms. The activity is also technology-dependent, and it changes as technology changes. The TERM is less than a century old. There are legitimate differences of opinion on terminology, but the activities are far older.

Allowing for changes in technology, graphic design activities date back many centuries. Merriam-Webster’s defines graphic design as "the art or profession of using design elements (as typography and images) to convey information or create an effect; also : a product of this art.” Merriam-Webster’s earliest exemplar dates to 1935, well after Dwiggins.

The Oxford English Dictionary dates an earlier term — graphic art — to the 1750s, defining the compound term “graphic design” under a broader definition of the noun graphic, “Of or pertaining to drawing or painting.  graphic arts: the fine arts of drawing, painting, engraving, etching, etc.; also, the techniques of production and design involved in printing and publishing; graphic design: graphics (sense B. 2 below); so  graphic designer.”

These activities and the related activities of typography, type-cutting, and type-setting date to the 1400s in the West. Movable type printing dates to the turn of the first millennium in China with ceramic type and the 1200s in Korea with metal type. 

The activities of graphic design long predate the term. While graphic design education as we know it today is relatively new, it nevertheless dates back to the early 20th century and in some forms to the 19th century. But professional education in the techniques of older technologies date back many centuries. Apprenticeship and academies offered formal education for many trades and professions. While these forms of education are now located in universities, a scribe or an illustrator responsible for the graphic design of 12th-century books and documents would apprentice in a scriptorium or a master’s studio. Typographers and the people we would now describe as book designers were enrolled as apprentices to master printers or licensed publishers.     

Paul Shaw argues a defensible point. In contrast, you made a specific statement to the list about Raffe’s book and Dwiggins’s essay. I’m not debating Shaw. I was challenging your contentions “in view of the evidence.” 

Ken 
 


> On 2015Apr19, at 11:08, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Ken,
> A more interesting history of 'graphic design as a term' is by Paul Shaw in 
> http://www.paulshawletterdesign.com/2014/06/graphic-design-a-brief-terminological-history/ 
> Shaw is suggests the Dwiggins reference is inappropriate.
> Terry 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ken Friedman
> Sent: Sunday, 19 April 2015 10:27 AM
> To: PhD-Design
> Subject: Re: Design Studies and Design History
> 
> Terry,
> 
> From time to time I wonder whether you have the basic research skills we expect in anyone with a PhD. This is not an ad hominem attack. It is a challenge to your skills and knowledge as a researcher. You spend immense amounts of time asking for evidence of simple facts that you could easily determine with basic research research skills. 
> 
> You ask, “Do you have evidence of Raffe's book existing, such as an image of its cover?”
> 
> Check the catalogue of the British Library. The British Library has two editions, 1927 and 1932. Both were published in London by Chapman and Hall. You can search the full catalogue on the web. 
> 
> You write, “I also see no copies anywhere of Dwiggins' essay. Again puzzling. They are both referred to all over the place in the history of graphic design literature,   but, in view of the evidence, I'm left with a question as to whether they actually exist.”
> 
> The Dwiggins essay is reprinted in a 1999 book from Allworth Press titled Looking Closer 3: Classic Writings on Graphic Design. The original appeared in a 1922 supplement to The Boston Transcript, a newspaper no longer published. If you don’t believe the evidence of the Allworth Press reprint, locate a microform copy of the newspaper.
> 
> There is a genuine problem here if you looked for these items and could not find them. I located this information in a few minutes on the web.
> 
> Ken


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